IV INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

MINDFULNESS AND SOCIETY

February 26 – 27, 2021

On line by Zoom

SUSTAINABILITY, SOCIAL CHANGE AND MINDFULNESS

There are not many occasions in which the practitioner of Mindfulness finds a space to reflect and debate on how Mindfulness can help build a better society, more aligned with the crucial objectives to which humanity aspires in the near future, in terms of climate change, sustainability, social justice …

Witness live the reflections made by international teachers and researchers from the world of Social Mindfulness, in a very special conference, beyond the personal practice of Mindfulness.

David Loy,  Beth Berila, Janine Schipper, Vidyamala Burch…

In the course of this fourth edition of the International Mindfulness and Society Conference, we will have the opportunity to share with six scientists, researchers and teachers some mechanisms present in the field of Mindfulness that can help us understand the role that Mindfulness and Compassion can play in the construction of a new mentality to face the great challenges of humanity on this planet.

Can human qualities such as compassion, altruism, and mindfulness foster changes in collective thinking and action and drive a transformation toward sustainability? How could mindfulness practice help promote lifestyles, institutions, forms of governance and economic changes that promote the integrity of the ecosystems on which current and future generations of humans and other species depend? Can teaching Mindfulness in schools, workplaces and other institutions be a counterweight to the social and psychological forces that encourage us to find our meaning, our values ​​and our identity in consumerism?

What makes the consumer society so powerful and persuasive is its promise of continuous innovation, and its success lies precisely in its inability to provide us with lasting satisfaction. Explore in this Conference the current role of Mindfulness in sustainability science and in their mutual relationship, in the face of the depletion of resources, ecological destruction, unacceptable inequality and the health and well-being crises in which the world is immersed. Does Mindfulness have the potential to interrupt those chains of suffering? Does Mindfulness offer us a different way of approaching the continuous negotiation between our personal identity and our social being?

SCHEDULE

All times are EST – GMT -5

Friday 26 February

9,45 am – 10.00 am:  Opening of the IV International Conference on Mindfulness and Society | Rafael Senén. Editor of Inspira Magazine. Madrid. Spain

10.00 am – 11.30 am: Mindfulness towards a conscious and sustainable consumption | Sabrina V. Helm. University of Arizona (To be confirmed)

11.30 am – 1.00 pm: Shared humanity, sustainability and Mindfulness | Vidyamala Burch. Breathworks. UK

1.00 pm – 2.30 pm: Consciousness and Social Change | Janine Schipper. University of Northern Arizona, USA

Saturday 27 February

10.00 am – 11.30 am:  Mindfulness, feminism and social justice | Beth Berila. St. Cloud University. Minnesota, USA

11.30 am – 1.00 pm: A New Mindset for the Anthropocene | Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) Potsdam, Germany (To be confirmed)

1.00 pm – 2.30 pm: Ecodharma | David R. Loy. Writer and professor Sanbo Zen. Colorado, USA

TUITION REDUCED BY PANDEMIC

32.00 €

REGISTRATION

The organization reserves the right to change the order of the speakers during the conference, as well as to replace speakers with others of similar characteristics and profile if necessary.

SPEAKERS

David R. Loy is one of the international references in the West of Japanese Zen Buddhism. He is a writer and teacher of Zen in the Sanbo Zen tradition and the author of multiple essays and books that have been translated into many languages. His articles appear regularly on the pages of major magazines such as Tikkun and Buddhist magazines, including Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, and Buddhadharma. He is a member of the advisory boards of Buddhist Global Relief, Clear View Project, Zen Peacemakers, and the Ernest Becker Foundation. David Loy lectures nationally and internationally on various topics, focusing primarily on the encounter between Buddhism and modernity. Professor of Buddhist and Comparative Philosophy, Loy was, from 1990 to 2005, Professor at the Faculty of International Studies, Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Japan. In January 2006, he became the Professor of Ethics / Religion and Society at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, until September 2010. and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2014, David received an honorary degree from Carleton College, his alma mater, and in 2016, David returned it in protest of the College’s Board of Trustees’ decision not to divest to fossil fuel companies.

Vidyamala Burch is a Mindfulness Teacher, Writer and Co-Founder of Breathworks, an international Mindfulness organization known especially for developing mindfulness-based pain management. She is the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Pain Management Program (MBPM). The British Pain Society has recognized her ‘outstanding contribution to pain relief’ and in 2019 she was named to the Shaw Trust Power 100 list of the most influential disabled people in the UK. Burch Mindfulness for Health’s book won the British Medical Association’s 2014 Medical Books Award in the Folk Medicine category. Her organization, Breathwoks, operates in 35 countries helping alleviate the suffering of people with chronic pain or permanent ailments.

Janine Schipper, Ph.D. Sociology, Boston College, is associate professor of sociology at Northern Arizona University and executive editor of the sociological journal Humanity and Society, dedicated to publishing work on social justice, activism, and public sociology. Her book Disappearing Desert: the Growth of Phoenix and the Culture of Sprawl (University of Oklahoma Press 2008) examines the cultural forces that contribute to suburban sprawl in the United States. Her publications in environmental sociology focus on topics such as the cultural productions of space and time, rethinking our ideas about harmony with nature and questioning how responsible “responsible development” is. She recently published a seminal article on Buddhist sociology titled “Towards a Buddhist Sociology: Its Theories, Methods, and Possibilities” (American Sociologist 2012) and is a co-author of Sociology: A Critical and Contemporary Perspective (4th Edition, National Social Science Press 2012). As a public sociologist, Janine has been involved in public debates on collective wisdom and sustainable communities and is a professor in NAU’s Master in Sustainable Communities. Janine has been integrating contemplative practices into her undergraduate and graduate classes in Environmental Sociology, Awareness and Social Change, and Sustainable Communities for the past 6 years. Her current research examines how mindfulness practices can affect grassroots organizations.

Beth Berila, Ph.D., 500-hr RYT, is the director of the Women’s Studies Program and a professor in the Department of Women’s and Ethnic Studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, USA. She is also a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher and Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist by the Devanadi School of Yoga and Wellness. She works every day at the intersection of empowerment, Mindfulness, feminism, and social justice. She is the author of the book Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy: Social Justice in Higher Education (Routledge). Beth was part of the leadership team of the Yoga and Body Image Coalition for two years and now she is a community partner working to make yoga and meditation accessible to all by challenging the lack of diversity in Western yoga culture. Her current projects fuse yoga and meditation practices with feminism and mindful education to create a socially engaged form of learning.

Who is the conference aimed at?

Mindfulness practitioners, of any level, who want to delve into the topics covered in the conference.

Mindfulness teachers and instructors who want to go deeper beyond practice.

Professionals in medicine and psychotherapy who want to find out more about essential aspects of Mindfulness

Mechanics of the Conference

It is about two days with three sessions each, of 90 minutes, of which 20-30 minutes will be dedicated to questions, doubts and debate. However, by using the Zoom platform, attendees can, at any time, intervene, comment and ask questions. These are live sessions, with five or ten minute passes between each one.